CUSTER'S GRAY RIVAL: The Life of Confederate Major General Thomas Lafayette Rosser

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Biography of Confederate Major General Thomas Lafayette Rosser, who looked upon life as a series of contests and loved the glory of combat. He served in nearly every battle of the Army of Northern Virginia. The only person who could derail Rosser, however, was Rosser, whose ability to take umbrage at the slightest offense was matched by his impatience and oversized ego.

In 1864 after Stuart's death, he accused his new commander, General Wade Hampton, of blocking his promotion to major general. The cavalryman's most prominent service arrived in the Shenandoah Valley under Lt. Gen. Jubal Early in the fall of 1864, where Rosser led daring raids and achieved success in furnishing the army with valuable intelligence, livestock, and other supplies. His embarrassing failure in the Confederate debacle at Tom's Brook on October 9 against his former classmate and rival George Custer, combined with his absence from the front at a shad bake at Five Forks during the war's final days, cast a dark cloud over his otherwise solid record.

He continued fighting rivals, gray and blue, after the war by means fair and foul, unable to check his ego and short temper. He ended his military career as a general in the United States army in the Spanish-American War.